


Tale as Old as Time (Fourteen Kisses)

by tiptoe39



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fractured Fairy Tale, Godstiel: Cas as God, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/pseuds/tiptoe39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With his new divine power, Castiel brings back Gabriel and gets more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [secondplatypus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=secondplatypus).



  


**i. The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam** (first, accidental)

Castiel walks alone in a graveyard of souls.

Here, in the pieces of a shattered heaven, he sees the true impact of the apocalypse that almost was. He sees the extent of the damage, the ruins of a destiny brought down, the carcasses of monsters and demons and angels alike, brought here to this final resting place of things with neither bodies nor souls in perpetuity.

It saddens him, but this is his duty now, his responsibility as both lord and caretaker. Joshua has fled, one of the sad aftereffects of Castiel's ascendancy. He does not blame the angel for choosing to leave. If anything, he understands that all may choose their loyalties freely. And Joshua was always unfailingly loyal to his fellow Gardener. Castiel will permit him that loyalty. Nonetheless, this means Castiel is here alone, to sweep away the detritus of the catastrophe he's helped to cause.

Should he regret what he has done? The question nags, especially considering the enormity of the task given to him, but he has never cared for his own fatigue, and he cannot bring himself to rue his decisions. He has done the right thing. It is only a shame that so many have been lost for it to happen.

Some of the bodies glow with dying celestial light. Some hang heavy with black smoke. But from the end of the expanse comes a glow of gold, a particular brand of radiance that makes Castiel ache with longing. He hurries to the source of the glow, the holy light that belongs only to those who were once his superior brethren, the higher order of angels. And thus a god kneels, struck with sudden grief, at the feet of his brother.

"You should have not died, Gabriel," he says. "That was an injustice."

And one he mourned, too -- though he did not speak of it, he had admired his brother's glory, before the fall. And when he learned of Gabriel's sacrifice, even though their last meeting had been chilly at best, Castiel had been sad. Gabriel would have been a good warrior to have on his side. And it would have been good to speak with him, at least once, of their stand against both Heaven and Hell, of their mutual appreciation for the things that really mattered.

He never got that conversation. But that no longer means he never will.

Now, he has now the power to undo these things that should not have happened. He has gained entry with his godhood to this most mysterious of places, the afterlife beyond afterlives. And now his heart can reach out to the heart of an angel who is no more and pull him back from the void. It is in his power to bring Gabriel back.

He imagines their bodies, as he's come to know them. He mutters an ancient incantation that he never knew until this moment. And he reaches in to pull out a grace that was gone from this world.

And then, abruptly, everything is physical.

The souls scatter from his vision. Rays of sunshine beat down from above. And Castiel is falling, backward, borne and buoyed by wings that aren't his, held by a body whose touch he has not felt for millennia.

And his lips are touched by a kiss of life.

His eyes widen. He fights for control and balance. He struggles, but warm living lips are fast against his, holding him up just as fiercely as Gabriel's arms secure him, as Gabriel's wings slow their descent.

Gabriel's lips break from his long enough for Castiel to give a shout of confusion and surprise.

"Shh," Gabriel warns him, "I'm right here. I won't let you fall."

God though he is, unafraid though he is, Castiel is relieved to hear it.

Below them, the green of an endless forest approaches. Castiel faces upward, but he can see without looking. He can smell, too, the scent of the trees. They will glide down, alight on the treetops. He smiles at Gabriel. "Welcome back," he says, beaming proudly at what he has been able to do, at the gratitude he'll surely receive.

Gabriel's brow twitches. "On the other hand," he says, "you could stand to fall a bit."

He lets go. Castiel hurtles through the trees. Arms and legs catch on branches; clothing rips; skin scrapes and tears. He shouts in surprise and pain, looks up, but his brother's out of sight. His hands close around wood, but the boughs break. He's dropped, foot by painful foot, down through branches and bramble, nettles stinging his skin, and finally crunches to the ground inside a sturdy bush with leathery leaves. Dirt flies up and into his mouth.

Gabriel alights, dainty as you please, beside him.

"God?" he says. "God? _Seriously?_ "

Castiel just groans.

 **ii. Been around the block before with blockheads just like you** (first/on purpose)

Cuts and bruises are easy to repair. Torn clothing is made new in a heartbeat. None of these are a problem. But the fact that he was dropped -- that he fell, that he didn't stop himself -- that is an embarrassment beyond imagining, and Castiel huffs with anger as he finds his way to his feet. "Where are we?" he asks.

"I think it's Michigan," Gabriel says. "Or maybe Manitoba. One of those North American M's. Anyway, it's the middle of nowhere, which I figure's the safest place for you until you get over yourself."

Castiel frowns at him.

"What? You don't think I heard all that 'I am God now, check me out, bringing an archangel back to life' crap you were thinking when you pulled me out of the black hole? Didn't take long for me to search through your memory files. You can have the best security system in the world, brother, but if you leave it unlocked..."

Reddening, Castiel devotes a moment of his time to securing the recesses of his mind and memories from outside intrusion. A blink, and he's unreadable.

"Oh, you lock that barn door, little bro." Gabriel smiles and claps his hands. "The horse is already gonzo."

"You should be thanking me," Castiel says, his face clouding with anger. "I saved your life."

Gabriel tilts his head to one side, then the other, his lips pursed with thought. "I suppose," he says. "But then again, I've already saved your bacon. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have had a clue how to stop the apocalypse, much less go all Strangelove on the world. So I'd say we're just about even."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I don't know what I'm talking about? That's rich. You have lost your gourd, Castiel, and I can't let you go on like this."

Castiel approaches him on steady steps. "You don't have a choice."

"Oh, don't I?"

Gabriel plants a banana peel.

One minute the ground is solid, and the next minute Castiel's slipping, falling for the second time today. He's on his rear in a second, the victim of the oldest joke in the book. God with a bruised tailbone.

"It doesn't matter how many souls you've swallowed there," Gabriel says, crossing his arms over his chest. "Nuclear or not, they're still just a bunch of fish eggs. They rev the motor, but they don't make you any smarter. And they sure as hell don't make you get it."

His pride smarting more than his rear, Castiel sits up and looks at his brother. Centuries of respect and obedience keep him frozen to the ground. Though technically he could disappear at any moment, it just doesn't occur to him.

"This is the deal I'm going to make with you, brother," Gabriel says, crouching before him. "You and I are going to stick around Earth for a while."

"I'm not interested in playing any games with you."

"Tough. You abandoned heaven when your pets needed you, you betrayed earth when it suited your purposes, now you're going to take some time to do what I need you to do. Don't tell me you don't have time. You _own_ time. This is your universe, so let's live in it for a while. Even our father managed to do that a bit, remember?"

Castiel's anger is fading to skeptical curiosity. "And what would you have me do while I'm here?"

"Learn. And live. And remember why it is that you thought this was a good idea to begin with. You gave up heavenly powers once before, didn't you? You thought there was a time for that. I'm going to remind you what that was like. And then, when I'm convinced you remember what it is to really love -- not this magnanimous God-love bullcrap, but really, really love -- then you get set free. Or do you not think you can still love the way you used to? Have you lost that ability, all juiced up like you are?"

The words hit home. Castiel vaguely remembers loving, and he even more vaguely remembers not caring if he was loved in return. Jealousy and pride got the better of him -- he is the first to admit that -- and he made ill-advised decisions, but things were the way they were, and he did it for the sake of the universe -- but he barely remembers why he thought the universe was such an important thing.

He hangs his head. He can't look Gabriel in the eye, can't admit to this failing. "How will I prove to you I've learned your lesson?" he says, bitterness on his tongue and in his voice.

"Hm. Good question. Well, we do seem to be in the middle of Walt Disney's favorite forest." Gabriel winks at a chipmunk, which runs away, terrified. "I think I'll let you go when you've experienced the Kiss of True Love."

In all his infinite power, Castiel has absolutely nothing to counteract that one. His jaw drops.

"What, nothing?" Gabriel cackles. "Aw, you're adorable when you're flummoxed, little brother. All you have to do is find some worthy maiden, fall for her, and smooch her. But until you do, you're mine. Got--"

He shuts up. Because Castiel's on his feet. In front of him. Grabbing him.

"Does it have to be a maiden?" he asks. His fingers curl around Gabriel's shoulders.

His mouth is on Gabriel's before the archangel can say a word -- the kiss is deliberate, sensual, everything a kiss ought to be, and Gabriel quivers, allowing it to happen and deepen. He can sense more emotion there than he expected, even having plumbed through the morass of Castiel's tortured mind as he did, and Gabriel's suddenly clinging to him, proud, proud beyond belief that his brother still has a heart that's pure beneath all of its layers of corruption. They can be stripped away. Castiel can be saved. And Gabriel can be the one to save him. That makes him happier than he has any right to be.

The kiss breaks. Castiel's lips remain in a puckered "o" just inches from Gabriel's mouth.

"A good start," Gabriel says. "But not quite there yet. We'll have to practice."

 **iii. Ask 'em my questions and get some answers** (educational)

They build a cottage in the middle of the forest, creating cement and glass from the atoms of trees that had stood in that space for a hundred years beforehand. When it's done -- and it's quaint, the very picture of a log cabin from a wilderness movie -- Castiel stands inside and looks out the window. The light is moving through the leaves in a thousand overlapping shades of green, like fragment patterns from a kaleidoscope projected onto a sunny screen. The patterns vacillate before his eyes, and he sighs, fascinated. There is geometry there, a subtle symmetry, visual music -- and there is also a sort of abstract art, a duality of existence that he might never have noticed had he not come to see the world in this way.

Gabriel is wrong. He can never give this power back willingly. It's shown him too much, given him too much beauty.

Something bittersweet nudges him then, a sense that there's something missing from that resolve, that it’s a betrayal in itself. He shakes it aside. He has no time for second-guessing. He must run Gabriel's gauntlet and be through it.

The kiss of true love. What in the hell does that mean, anyway?

Castiel has never been good at subterfuge. He pauses in the doorway as he sees Gabriel happily milling about in the kitchen. He seems to have gone grocery shopping in the meantime, and imported some furniture, while Castiel was busy pondering the patterns of leaves. They now have a kitchen table, and place settings, and there's a sweet smell in the air.

"You're cooking," Castiel says.

"You're observant."

"But you don't need to cook."

"And therein lies one of your Disney-esque life lessons," Gabriel says, spinning. He's holding a wooden spoon covered with red sauce, something that could equally well be ketchup or cherries or fresh blood, and quite out of keeping with any human traditions of hygiene, he licks it with a long pink tongue before returning it to whatever pot he was just stirring. It occurs to Castiel that if Sam Winchester were here, he'd make a face. The thought makes a corner of his mouth quirk up , an impulse to smile that he immediately tamps down on.

"Explain," he says, crossing past the brand-new dinner table to join Gabriel in front of the stove. It is marinara sauce, and the bubbling pots are full of pasta and sauce and steaming vegetables. There's something lovely and symmetrical about the range of colors, the evenness of the circular pots and the variety of what's inside, and Castiel thinks he could stop and ponder it for a very long time.

But Gabriel's busy complaining. "What's with 'explain'? What, have you forgotten manners too? Yeesh, Castiel, at the very least you used to be polite? 'Explain.' Explain what, exactly?"

Castiel winces but otherwise ignores the rant. "I thought the question was obvious. Explain your Disney-esque life lesson."

"Oh, Casti- _el._ " Gabriel tilted his head and clucked his tongue. "It's not that simple."

As much as Castiel considers himself a god, he has never been one to give orders rather than take them. He accepts what Gabriel says with a sort of resignation and frustration, frowning hard at him and at the happily humming stove, trying to find a way around the frustrating blockade that Gabriel's put up in his way. He could demand that Gabriel tell him. He could probably even hold Gabriel's life ransom. Or he could quit this entire scene in a moment and fly off into nowhere.

But then he'd be alone again. And then he'd never know.

"May I make a request?" he asks feeling strangely humbled and shy before Gabriel's ease.

"You can make one," Gabriel says, singsong, the second half of his sentence not needing to be spoken -- _but I can't guarantee I'll answer._

"You said I must have the kiss of true love."

"Mm-hm." Gabriel sips a bit of sauce, moves to the sink to strain the vegetables.

"But the only instruction I've ever had in kissing comes from a pornographic video," Castiel says. "I don’t think love was involved."

"Well, you were hanging out with the Winchesters. Wankchesters, more like." With a sizzle, the vegetables scatter across a shallow pan. Gabriel lifts up the marinara sauce and pours it across their backs. "Heroes, sure, but legendary lovers they ain't."

"Will you teach me, then?" Castiel asks, and Gabriel very nearly sprays marinara sauce all over the kitchen. His ladle clatters into the pot and sends a half-dozen dots of red across the range top and the wall. Castiel sees nothing odd in it.

"You want me to teach you how to kiss." Gabriel's voice is flat when it finds the words to speak. "It's bad enough I'm letting you use me for target practice, yeesh."

Castiel steps closer to him, the toes of his shoes brushing Gabriel's. "You know how. You are my judge. I think it's only fair that I know the criteria."

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "It's not something you can teach, genius."

"Perhaps love is not." Castiel takes him by the shoulders. "But kissing is. There is technique. That much is clear to me."

"Oh, for cripes' sake!" Gabriel throws up his arms. "Fine, fine. I'll teach you. What the hell. Can we eat dinner first?"

Castiel waves a hand. The pots stop mid-jump, and the air hangs dead in the room.

"Apparently not," Gabriel says, gazing at them. "For the love of corn syrup, you're pushy."

"Show me" is all Castiel says.

Gabriel smiles. He starts to speak, then shakes his head and just moves into Castiel's waiting arms. His eyes lock with Castiel's, and the gaze holds for several seconds. Enough for Castiel to want to ask why the wait, where's more, but then Gabriel's thumb is on his lower lip, fingers tucking under his chin, and Castiel's breathless, suddenly understanding, wanting so badly he can't contain himself. He closes his eyes tight, fists curling, and forces himself to wait for the touch of Gabriel's lips.

It comes at an angle, tentative at first, pressing, and then they're melding, exploring with the safe, chaste pressure and slide of lips. Almost unbearable desire swells through Castiel, and his every instinct is to fold Gabriel up in his arms, tug on his hair, force his mouth to open and plunder it like a conqueror would. But this is his lesson to learn, so he lets Gabriel pull away, lets his mouth pucker longingly at the end of the kiss, and waits for more.

Gabriel waits until he has the common sense to open his eyes.

"That's right, Castiel, I'm over here," he says, breaking into a grin.

Castiel regards him. "That was frustrating," he says.

"Well, of course it was." Gabriel slides out of his arms, cool and casual as if nothing had happened. "How else am I supposed to keep you wanting more?"

It infuriates Castiel. "Why not give me more?"

Gabriel's lips press together. "Why not, indeed," he says, and lifts the bubbling sauce from the range top, shutting off the burner. "Could you pass me that bowl?"

Bubbling with want and confusion and anger, Castiel blinks the bowl out of existence and blinks it back in at Gabriel's elbow. Gabriel frowns an instant, then does the same in reverse. The bowl disappears from the counter as readily as it showed up, and reappears in front of Castiel. "I said, could you _pass_ me that bowl?"

Castiel's brow darkens. He picks up the glass bowl and hands it mutely to Gabriel.

Their fingers touch, and a glimmer of bright excitement filters into Castiel's hand, shivers up his arm. He very nearly drops it.

Gabriel watches the reaction, smirks, and finally says, "Well?"

Castiel looks at his fingers. His gaze wanders to Gabriel's lips. And then his hand follows his gaze.

"The pleasure is not in the gratification," he murmurs, tracing Gabriel's bottom lip with his index finger. "It is in the wanting itself."

Gabriel's mouth crinkles into a smile beneath Castiel's touch.

"And that's why I'm cooking," he says.

 **iv. Knowing them as they will never know me** (awkward)

"Let's go on a date," Castiel says the following day.

Gabriel is finger painting, his hands a rainbow splash, the tarp thrown on the ground far more colorful than the unfinished canvas, as though he's doing a spectacular failure of a Jackson Pollock impression. "Hmm?" he says, pursing his lips and quite literally bending over backward to stare at Castiel.

"I want to take you on a date," Castiel says.

Gabriel takes one look at him, sees the way his thumbnail is biting into the flesh of his index finger, and suppresses his laughter in favor of a simple "Where'd this come from?"

"From your lesson." Castiel walks to the canvas, touches his hand to a red blob of paint, and traces it across the canvas despite Gabriel's horrified face. "If love is about the wanting, then I can understand why humans court. I should practice."

"For your fair maiden?" Gabriel saunters across the room to the bathroom, and runs the sink to wash his hands.

"A fair maiden was your stipulation, not mine."

"Well, I suppose if you're dying to lay one on Dean Winchester--"

Castiel falls into a coughing fit so furious he honestly thinks he might not be able to breathe for another hour.

Gabriel peeks out from the bathroom. "No-go on Dean, then? And here I thought--"

"I doubt Dean appreciates what assets I bring to the table," Castiel says tonelessly.

Gabriel throws back his head and laughs. "That was funny! You're doing better than I thought."

"So will you go on a date with me?"

"On one condition."

Castiel frowns.

"Oh, relax, I'm not making you wear a dress. It just has to be in town, all right? Among real honest-to-You human beings." Gabriel winks. "See what I did there?" The frown darkens to a glower. "Right, then, moving on. Take me out on the town, see how it feels, sure. I can't say as I have any other hot dates tonight. But if you cop a feel before you buy me dinner, all bets are off."

The conversation is long over by the time Castiel realizes he's been steadily memorizing every wrinkle that forms around Gabriel's eyes when he laughs.

It's not so long before they're walking into town, side by side, and Castiel's his old, awkward self.

For one thing, he's wearing a black sweater and jeans, something Gabriel's picked out for him so as to make him look like a guy who knows how to have a little fun, but Castiel might as well be naked for how the outfit feels, scratchy and invasive, like a false set of skin. He can't stop scratching under the collar, and Gabriel's annoyed as he puffs out little breaths over in his direction. At last he finally grabs Castiel's hand away, instructing him to stop worrying about it, and Castiel gives him soulful, pleading eyes before remembering that yeah, he can probably deaden those nerves just slightly and continue his walk along. The embarrassment and discomfort in his heart, though, is harder to quell, and it gets worse when he realizes that they're being watched at they walk down the street, watched with eyes both curious and critical, and the locus of those gazes is very clearly the junction between his and Gabriel's hands.

He tries to shake free, but Gabriel grips tight and levels a severe look at him. "What's your problem?" he asks. "You're sweating like a Mexican wrestler."

Castiel runs his free hand over his forehead, surprised. "I'm not sure. I have suddenly realized I'm being identified, with you. As a unit. It's ... it's objectifying. I'm not being looked at for who i am."

"You're wearing a vessel," Gabriel reminds him. "You've never been seen on this plane for who you are, Castiel. Me neither."

"But I'm being-- there's derision in their thoughts--"

"Oh, that's just good old homophobia," Gabriel scoffs. "Don't let it get to you."

"That's a difficult order to obey," Castiel snaps.

"I'm not giving you orders," retorts Gabriel, and then his face softens. "C'mon, it's a date. Be proud to be seen with me. Imagine it's a beautiful girl on your arm."

Castiel almost protests - his jaw opens and he's sure he's going to say something embarrassing - but in the end he just snaps his jaw back shut again and swallows it. Whatever it was going to be.

"What if I were to kiss you now?" he asks after a moment of silence.

Gabriel laughs. "What if?"

"That would prove to you that I'm proud to be seen with you, wouldn't it?"

Gabriel looks at him funny, through squinting eyes and a slanting head, for a long moment. "I suppose," he says. "Why, do you think that's something I'm terribly worried about?"

Castiel is about to retort, but he doesn't think he knows what he's about to say, more than knowing that it could potentially be something very dangerous.

"I am just practice," Gabriel reminds him. "Don't forget that, Castiel. It's only because I happen to have a perverted sense of humor that I'm letting you use me as practice. But don't you go on and start thinking I'm the one you're really going after. Your true love has always been humans. Don't get confused and think I'm one of 'em, because I’m part of the problem. You need a solution."

"What if you are the solution?" Castiel snaps.

"Oh, don't." Gabriel waves a dismissive hand. "Don't get all confused on me now, Castiel."

A seed of anger plants itself in Castiel's chest and burns there, like a hot brand against his skin. He squirms against it and finally gives a huff and takes Gabriel by the shoulders. "You're only practice?" he says.

Gabriel's brow furrows, and he looks at Castiel like he once looked at a brother who'd managed to run him through with a blade.

"Then let's practice," Castiel says, and his mouth comes down on Gabriel's, hard and uncompromising. Gabriel struggles, and beats at Castiel's chest trying to get free.

And then someone speaks up.

"Oh my!"

"Shouldn't someone call the police?"

"Oh come, now, you know they let them marry in Massachusetts."

"It's unsightly."

"Hooligans."

"Mommy, why are the two men kissing?"

"Shh, never mind them."

"But why?"

"Ask your father."

What started as a determined kiss has faded into a joint, lips-touching eavesdropping session. Gabriel's reddening, and Castiel is a little afraid to move. His eyes open, and he looks to and fro suspiciously, his brow furrowing when he catches sight of one of the nay-sayers. They back off, clamp their jaws' shut, or glare back. And it takes Gabriel talking against his mouth-- "Castiel. Castiel, this is getting a mite awkward--" to pry him loose.

He stumbles backward, his blood racing, anger slowly simmering downward again. These people aren't worth his ire.

Gabriel, on the other hand, whirls and faces down the crowd. "Why don't you all mind your own damn business? I have it on good authority that God is gay, or at least bisexual, so get over yourselves. If God doesn't care who you kiss, you should go kiss as many people as you can. It's fun! No, seriously! Way more fun than clicking your tongue at strangers, I promise. Now shoo, before I turn you all into chicks with dicks. And I can do that!"

By the end of his rant, he's red-faced and panting. Even those who hadn't been watching before have now turned to look, astonished. He shrinks a bit. "Oh," he said, "I guess that was kind of awkward, too."

Castiel, on the other hand, just holds his head high and grabs Gabriel by the wrist, leading him down the street.

"Hey!" Gabriel starts by protesting, then gives in and contents himself with just eyeing Castiel suspiciously. Castiel couldn't care less. Let him stare. Let all of them stare. He is just learning what he wants.

 **v. Can I ignore that sound of distant drumming?** (sweet)

The date's actually pretty nice after that. Castiel has settled into a mellow ease that concerns Gabriel somewhat, but he's not about to fault it, not when they're getting along so well. He's actually gotten Castiel to crack a smile a handful of times, not a small feat when you're God's court jester, and now, after dinner, they're sitting on the pier watching ladies walk by and commenting on their various states of dress and/or the recent affairs that are rushing through their minds. Every so often Gabriel encourages Castiel to go up and talk to one. Every time Castiel says no.

Somehow or other, they've forgotten to stop holding hands, too.

"Do you remember the early days, Castiel?" Gabriel says. "When they were just starting out. No clue that we'd end up with iPhones and belly button rings and strawberry margaritas?"

"Not as such," Castiel says. "But certainly, they always had potential."

"And wasn't that just the very bee that got up Luci's bonnet. Which is better, beings that are perfect from the get-go, that never ask a question and never question destiny, or beings that just have the potential for perfection but keep trying to achieve it? That's the remarkable part for me. We can do everything, but they... they can change."

"We've changed," Castiel points out. "You changed your mind about them. I changed--"

"Yes, yes, God, blah-de-blah." Gabriel rolls his eyes and pulls his hand away, thoroughly disgusted at having to even think about it.

"That wasn't what I was talking about," Castiel replies quietly. He folds his hands into his lap and sits unspeaking for a few minutes.

"Aw, Cas, come on, don't be that way." Gabriel tries to nudge him, but Castiel twitches. "What, what'd I say now?"

"You called me Cas," Castiel mutters.

"Yeah, so what? It's short."

"He called me Cas."

Gabriel takes a breath. It's the first Castiel's brought up the Winchesters since they started this foolishness, and all at once Gabriel understands why.

"It really hurt, didn't it?" he says. "Having them turn their backs on you. Especially Dean."

Castiel is silent. A flinch of his brow is the only movement in his suddenly stony face.

"You could have used one good 'I get what you're trying to do here,' " Gabriel goes on. He's guessing now, but he's pretty sure his intuition is right. "Just some validation that you were at least trying to do the right thing. If he'd given you that, maybe you could have trusted him enough to give up the souls at the end."

"You're making assumptions." Castiel glowers.

"Am I, though?" Gabriel presses closer, lays a hand on Castiel's arm. "I think I get it, Cas. I know why you did what you did, but how much of this being-God stuff is about really wanting to be God, and how much is about proving you're better than humans?"

Castiel turns to him, opens his jaw, and stays, open-mouthed, silent. Gabriel can see the horror moving through his face, the realization, the anger and the contemplation, like the march of ghosts against the ruins of a battlefield. So much he has to think about right now, so much he has to come to grips with. Gabriel doesn't envy him the task.

"Is it better, then?" he says at last. "Is it better to have a God who doesn't speak, doesn't reveal himself? Is it better to have no God at all than to have me take on the task of setting this world right? I care. I care what happens to this world. Isn't that a better option?"

Gabriel watches him. There's a thread of anger there, surely, pulsing beneath the low growl of his words, but it's not drowning out the fear and the doubt. He pities his brother right now, pities him because it's not the first time he's had to look at his own actions and decide if he's done wrong and how to make it right. Worse now than the first time, because this time it was in trying to make things right that he's done wrong.

It aches to watch and not do anything about it. So Gabriel leans over and closes his lips over Castiel's.

A dry kiss, sweet, yearning. Castiel's mouth does not open to his. It's not ready.

"Castiel," Gabriel says. "You're a good angel. You're one of the good ones. I'm sorry I never knew you before."

"Why?" Castiel's voice is mournful. "Because you could have stopped me?"

Gabriel shakes his head. "Because I like you. Does it have to be more complicated than that?"

Castiel gazes at him for a long minute, then lifts his head to stare out at the ocean. Gabriel lets him be. He has a lot to think about.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With his new divine power, Castiel brings back Gabriel and gets more than he bargained for.

  


**vi. One song, only for you** (needy)

Castiel withdraws after that, keeping to himself in the little house and not speaking. Gabriel catches him looking out the window and counting leaves, or air molecules, or cataloguing shades of green. Little things, to keep his mind occupied, to keep the yawn and roar of millions of souls from overtaking him and dragging him into turbulent darkness.

He's started to be aware of how they tug on his insides, Gabriel figures. The feel of souls powering you is different from the weightless electricity of grace; it's something borrowed, or stolen, not God-given, and that selfish act, or harvesting a soul for energy, is a corrupting force in itself. Gabriel has done it before. Balthazar was not the first angel to traffic in souls, nor the most skilled.

And Castiel had to have known the risk, going in. He had to have thought it was worth it. Dean could make a deal and go to hell; Sam could throw himself into the cage; but Castiel could not sacrifice his life to save the world. The only thing he could sacrifice was his integrity, and he did it without hesitation. In a way, It was a bold move. Gabriel appreciated the chutzpah, if not the outcome.

He’s getting lonely, though, and the house is too quiet. So after a few days he decides it’s long past time that Castiel break his self-imposed vow of silence. Besides, he has a fair maiden to find one of these days, and you can’t speed-date in a monastery, not even with eHarmony.

“Cas," he says, rapping sharply on the door, and then “Casti- _el._ "

He swings open the door when there’s no answer and faces an empty room.

“Well, _crap._ "

* *

Meanwhile, Castiel is looking over the edge of a cliff in Greece. Beside him, a young maiden looks up at him with demure eyes. He turns to her, closes his eyes, and disappears before their lips can meet.

In an African jungle, an intense biologist with ebony skin laughs at his intensity and calls him a Bengal tiger. She strips naked before him in the firelight. Castiel turns away.

In a teahouse in Japan, he watches a master of the leaves tell his fortune. She knows a lot about fortune and destiny and the impermanence of all things earthly. Castiel leaves with the taste of tea, not her, on his lips.

He returns to the small house with resolve clenched into his fists.

* *

"Well, where the heck have you been?" are Gabriel's first words when he strides through the door.

Castiel crosses the room and grabs him by the shoulders.

His mouth comes down on Gabriel's like a vise, crushing and gripping tight. Gabriel gasps, air sucking between their mouths, and falters, pushing back into him, hands fisting into the back of his coat. Castiel is relentless, keeping their mouths locked without respite, his hands traveling up Gabriel's neck to his face and pulling tight fingers against his cheeks.

When he breaks apart it's with a growl, and he immediately lifts a finger to Gabriel's lips.

"I don't want a human," he says. "I don't want a maiden. You're who I want, Gabriel. You and no one else. You're the only one."

Gabriel falters a moment. "What?" he says, and then shakes his head, "No, never mind, I heard you the first time. You've gone mad, Castiel. Bonkers, barking. You've mixed your beans up. Hello? Which one of us has been fighting for the future of the human race? OK, granted, I've been dead, but you get the picture. You love them, you’ve always been the Little freaking Mermaid. You want to go live where the people are. If you wanna fall in love with a prince instead of a princess that's fine, but it's always been them."

"You're wrong." Castiel's voice is even, and he's smiling in that mildly creepy self-confident way of his that makes Gabriel's skin do the creepy-crawlies. "I believe in humans. But I could only ever love an equal. Or my better." His smile softens. "Someone from whom I could learn to be a better person."

Gabriel doesn't know what to say for a moment. He hangs back, running his fingers nervously over the back of his other hand, regarding Castiel. Eyes fixed on him like he's a shadow that might flicker out of sight with the slightest change in the light. "I swear, every time I think I know you," he says, his voice muted, almost awed. He gives a low whistle. “Me, huh? Me. No pressure or anything."

“Gabriel," Castiel says. “Why can’t you accept this?"

“Oh, I don’t know, because it’s ridiculous? Because I’m not worth your time? Lest you forget, Castiel, I’m a runaway. A coward. How I could teach you anything about something I don’t even know..."

He’s flattened against Castiel’s body, head bobbing forward automatically to his shoulder as he’s folded into an embrace. “You can," Castiel murmurs into his ear. “You have. Feel this, brother. Doesn’t it feel right?"

Gabriel can hear his pulse pounding through the tender sheet of his skin.

“I … uh…" he starts, and then gives up. The embrace is too warm. He leans into it, hungry for warmth all of a sudden, wrapping his arms around Castiel’s waist and shoulders, burying his face in Castiel’s neck. It’s been too long. He’s missed this, the embrace of a brother. Not just a brother. Castiel. The little angel that could.

“Bond with me," Castiel whispers. “Be mine, Gabriel. And I will be yours."

“I want to—" the words are out of Gabriel’s mouth before he can think about it. “But Castiel, the souls—"

Castiel’s jaw set against Gabriel’s cheek. “What of them?" he asks.

“You’ve got to lose them," Gabriel says. “You’ve got to come back down and be the angel you’re supposed to be. You don’t do that, I’m not giving you anything." He pushes away. “I’ve loved gods before, and they’re too much for me to handle, bro. Maybe I just want to wear the pants in a relationship, but I’m not bonding with you while you’re still Nuclear Ted."

Castiel lowers his eyes. “I can’t."

“Then you’re out of luck, my friend." Gabriel crosses his arms and watches Castiel reproachfully. “Don’t think about touching me again until you’re ready to purge."

It ends the conversation pretty damn definitively. Castiel sighs and turns away.

So much for ending his isolation. Gabriel feels more alone than he did before Castiel returned. Swearing in an ancient language, he goes to scrub the kitchen. If he can’t be happy, the microscopic spores trying to form mildew on his counters are going to be miserable.

 **vii. Shut your eyes and trust in me** (filthy)

It’s not exactly where Castiel expected to be when he returned to the house. He came so flaming with passion, so absolutely enamored of Gabriel and sure that he’d found his answer in his brother’s touch. And instead of sparking into a grand conflagration, the sparks had died, sputtering, and Castiel was left choking on ash.

So here he is, alone but for the millions of souls churning within him, a mountain full of magma but without a vent for the heat roiling his gut. _Not true,_ he can hear Gabriel saying in his mind’s eye. _You can let them go. You can be you again._

But Castiel likes who he is. He likes what he can see like this, what he can do. Why would he give that up?

He considers fashioning a double, a minds-eye mirror of Gabriel to feed him candy and be all he wants, but that’s not what he wanted from Gabriel to begin with. He wants to be challenged, and anything he creates will never challenge him. He’s too smart a god to give birth to anything that might oust him the way he ousted his own father from the throne.

No, a clone in vessel or spirit will not suffice. It’s the real Gabriel he yearns for, the real Gabriel whose visage he misses in each moment of solitude. And he knows the feelings are returned. They can’t not be. He’s read it in every kiss so far, even the ones Gabriel gave him reluctantly. The need was there, raw and undisguised. And Castiel needs to taste it again.

He returns to Gabriel with a counterproposal. “Perhaps this is all backward," he says. “Maybe I cannot give up the souls until I fall in love. I could love you, Gabriel, but not without knowing you. Be with me first, trust me, teach me why I should step down from my throne."

Gabriel just mutters, “Speaking of thrones, I’d better go clean the bathroom," and leaves the room without looking at him.

He tries to tempt Gabriel. He begins to eat sweets, sits shirtless on the front lawn surrounded by candy wrappers, looking straight into the sun in a way no human can. His eyes are pale blue, filled with light, pupils tiny as he soaks in the rays. He can feel Gabriel looking. But Gabriel does not touch, does not even approach. Just looks and longs.

And so Castiel is left where he was in the beginning. Powerful, alone, and unsatisfied. No, he’s worse than he was. Before, he did not know what he was being denied.

“I could rewire your mind," he says once, out of nowhere. “I could make you dumb, obedient. Yourself, but unable to comprehend the lesson you’re trying to teach me. I suspect it would feel pleasantly like being intoxicated."

“You could do that," Gabriel agrees, going back to his game of solitaire (which involves the cards occasionally coming to life and performing obscene acts on the foundation piles), and not offering another opinion about it.

He doesn’t need to offer more. Castiel knows it is an empty threat. He knows he could never neuter Gabriel’s sense of defiance, any more than he could create a clone for Castiel’s selfish indulgences. It would not be the real thing. And Castiel’s craving is for reality.

He closes his eyes and prays for an answer, but there’s no one left to pray to.

It’s late on a summer night when Castiel returns to Gabriel with another proposition. “Suppose I put them away for a time," he says.

“I’m sorry? Your dishes? Please do, you leave them all over the house."

“The souls," Castiel ays. “Suppose I lay them aside temporarily. Then, if you can make me see your side of things, perhaps I will never pick them up again.

“And what are you going to do with fifteen million monster souls?" There’s excitement in Gabriel’s face that he’s trying hard not to betray. “You can’t exactly just shove them in the trunk of a car.

“I can disperse them," Castiel says. “Release their power into the cosmos. Over millions of light years, they won’t be nearly as powerful as they were on earth or in heaven."

“Will that work?" A tremble in Gabriel’s voice.

Castiel finds he is smiling. “There’s one way to find out."

They travel out onto the lawn, in the small clearing they’ve carved out of this forest. Castiel reaches inside himself and draws out a single, brilliant, shimmering soul. It lights up the whole clearing with white, but burns red with sin around the edges.

He tosses it into the atmosphere.

Up, up it travels, like a firework, and explodes out into the night sky, a million trails of vapor spangling as they disperse, each following its own trajectory into the universe. It’s spectacular, and Gabriel lets out a sharp laugh, clapping his hands with uncontrollable glee at the sight.

“God, it must be a party in there," he says, nodding at Castiel’s stomach. Castiel raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

He lets another soul fly, this one blue with heartless malice, and it, too, bursts in midair before diffusing out in all directions. It’s a hell of a show, and before long Gabriel is clapping enthusiastically, whistling and shouting as rocket after rocket goes off in the dark of the night. Castiel watches him, stunned at the simple pleasure in just experiencing his joy, being witness to it, knowing that with each soul that flies up and dissipates into the universe, Gabriel can trust him a little more. He craves that trust more, perhaps, than he ever craved the power.

A trio of souls spark in the night sky like Orion’s belt, fizzling out to Jupiter and Neptune and far, far beyond. Gabriel grabs Castiel by the back of the neck and pulls him down.

There’s nothing tentative, or scared, or even innocent about the kiss he lays on Castiel then. He sucks on Castiel’s upper lip, draws a whimper from him, then licks at the seam of his mouth and down beneath the ridge of his lower teeth. Castiel wraps him up in eager arms, and they sink, together, to their knees in the dark, dewy grass. The whole world is bright with souls and dark with space, and Castiel and Gabriel are in the middle of it, melding, finally together.

Deep in the grass, Castiel can’t see the details of Gabriel’s face, just the line of his profile, lit up with the fading illumination of souls radiating out around them. It’s a noble profile, one befitting an archangel, and Castiel can feel the old reverence returning, the old sense of knowing that there are things in the world more powerful and more mysterious than he. It’s a feeling he never thought he’d have again, and he’s surprised at just how relieved he is to feel it.

A sense of mystery. Of the unknown. It’s thrilling.

Gabriel bears down on him, touches him in a thousand places, and layers kisses as filthy as sin all over his body. Castiel is brought down, crying out in incoherent need, happy to be on earth and to be earthy for the first time. If his choice is between the celestial, the pure and clean, and this delicious, decadent fall from grace, he thinks he’d rather be here.

He’s still not convinced he has to choose one or the other. But he’s willing to try.

 **viii. Once we watched a lazy world go by** (butterfly)

He awakens with a chill. The night has painted dewdrops on his body, and the sun is just starting to burn them off. He has slept, he has shut his eyes and allowed the world to continue turning without him. For a moment he’s panicked. He must rise back to power, to take control, be sure the destiny of the universe has not shifted in the direction of chaos while he has slumbered. But the power isn’t immediately there for him to call to, and he realizes with a start that he has sent the souls flying, put them in an orbit around the edge of the galaxy so he can practice being the thing that Gabriel wants him to be.

Gabriel.

He looks down. The archangel is nestled in his arms, head turned up and into his collarbone, face pressed there as he slumbers. Castiel cinches his arms that much tighter around him. He’s flooded with memories, the feel of Gabriel’s hands as they clutched his, the weight of his mouth and the rhythm of their bodies as they’d melded, mated. It had been so carnal and so human that Castiel’s old, staid angel self is trying to feel shame.

He can’t. Nor does he want to. Gabriel’s humanness, his solidness, right here in Castiel’s arms, feels too good to ever regret.

Lips move, and a flutter sends a chill through Castiel’s body. It takes him a moment to locate the source of the flutter — Gabriel’s eyelashes, as he wakens, A puff of breath follows their touch, cool against Castiel’s chest, and he shifts, pulling Gabriel with him, to lie on his back and look up at the treetops and the morning sky.

Another flutter. Every time Gabriel stirs, the motion of his eyes sends a thrill. Such soft lashes, so small, and yet Castiel is drawn to their movements more than he is the sweaty, clasp of their stomachs or legs together. It doesn’t make sense. In life, the larger should be the more powerful. Something as small as eyelashes should not be enough to negate the oppressive warmth of a body in his arms.

But there Gabriel goes again. And again, he shivers.

There is a lesson there, Castiel suspects. But by then Gabriel has opened his eyes and pressed a kiss to his nipple, murmuring “Good morning," and Castiel’s attention focuses elsewhere.

 **ix. Freewheeling through an endless diamond sky** (sneaky)

It’s a nice way to spend a morning, curled up with another body, warm, solid, looking up at those familiar, tesseract patterns of leaves in sunlight. He can still see the infinite variation in color and shape, just a little less distinctly. Or maybe he isn’t trying quite as hard. But they’re still beautiful for knowing all that detail is there. He’s content at this resolution for now.

They barely speak. They don’t need to; there’s an understanding now that doesn’t require words of confirmation. Castiel has let Gabriel into his mind, not a lot, just enough. They speak in movements of light and image and energy much more basic than words, riding the crests of contentment and joy in unison. It’s similar to the intimacy of body language, but it doesn’t require movement. They kiss over and over again in their minds, without their lips ever touching.

Gabriel searches his mind for the souls; there are just enough of them now that Castiel has the power to call the rest back from the stratosphere if need be. Gabriel’s intention to get him to rid himself of those final few comes through; Castiel’s obstinate refusal to consider it answers.

That’s when Gabriel breaks into words, sitting up. “Why do you need them? C’mon, look how damn happy you are right here."

“So you’re telling me that you’re all I need."

“I’m telling you that you were all right as you were. Better. I appreciate the tricked-out ride, but it’s gonna break you in the end."

“I’m not following your metaphor," Castiel says, humorlessly, and Gabriel snorts hard. “How do you plan on convincing me, Gabriel?"

“I’m thinking we can take a trip down memory lane," Gabriel says. He rises to his feet. A blink and he’s dressed again, holding out his hands to Castiel. “Wanna come on a magical mystery tour?"

Castiel gets up. “Is that another reference?" He doesn’t even have to blink to summon his usual clothing. It’s uncomfortable and chafing next to the seamless ease that was Gabriel’s body. “I don’t get it."

“A magic carpet ride, then. Tell me you at least remember that little misadventure."

At the memory, Castiel’s mouth tweaks upward. “Back when djinns were much more common, yes. As I recall, we smote a number of them just for being in our way."

“They were blocking progress!" Gabriel shrugs. “How are you gonna develop the Arabic number system if your idea of luxury is hooking yourself up to an infernal IV and pretending you’re alive? Anyway, long story, long ago, never mind. Now, do we need an actual magic carpet, or can you just follow me?"

Castiel opens his palms. “Lead the way."

He’s blizzarded with the bright curl of wings. In less than a second Gabriel’s high above the trees. Castiel zooms upward to follow him.

They soar hand in hand, their wings trailing behind them in overlapping spans of light. Gold and charcoal gray, streaking through the sky in unseen splendor. “Where shall we go first?" Gabriel wonders aloud. “I have a little villa in the Mediterranean, or we could go get debauched in the West End."

“I thought this was about revisiting history."

“Hey, my history is all over the freaking place," Gabriel says with a huge grin. “But you’re right, let’s pop back to where it all began. Garden of Eden, cradle of civilization, all that good stuff. No stepping on any fish."

The words fall like a weight, and Castiel dips in midair. He fights his way back up, boggling at him. “Was that—"

Gabriel winks. “I was the Messenger, remember? I did a lot of watching you kids. You weren’t the only one interested in squishing the wildlife, you know. If I had a nickel for every species I had to protect from pre-emptive extinction…"

Castiel cuts him off with a kiss.

Mouth to mouth, wingtips touching, they float somewhere over the Euphrates, too high up to be anything but a speck in the sky. Castiel’s blindsided Gabriel, whose eyes and mouth both fall open. His wings flutter desperately to stay aloft.

Castiel kisses him thoroughly, then pulls back, looking rather pleased with himself.

“You’re getting sneaky," Gabriel says. His voice is breathy with undisguised want.

“Come, brother," Castiel says. His face is serene. “Show me where life began." He takes his brother’s hands and they descend.

 **x. Beneath the shelter of the trees only love can enter** (lazy)

Gabriel presses him down into the mud of the banks of human existence, where the first baby cried above water, and the first straw hut was built and then washed away by a flood after a rainstorm. He kisses Castiel until he can hardly be kissed anymore, and their bodies sink into the muck, behind a sheaf of reeds, where nobody can see. Castiel’s arms and legs are smeared with the brown muck, and he’s beautiful, a painted wildman, battle colors drawn along the line of his shoulder, sunlight filtering through the reeds onto his face. Gabriel looks down at him and sees a history close up that he was only able to watch from a distance, protect. He tangles his fingers with Castiel’s, the mud smearing between their palms and knuckles, caking them together.

Castiel’s chin tilts upward, his neck and cheeks pristine, even as his legs spread, bare toes pushing into the banks of the river. His knees bend, and Gabriel settles between them, uttering angelic blasphemies. His eyes roll back in his head. “Mother of heaven, Castiel, you take my breath away."

Castiel moans and stretches out the tendrils of his power, pulling Gabriel down for more.

When they join, Castiel opening himself to Gabriel with a wanton slide of hips against hips, it’s like being swallowed, like going back to the beginning and being formed all over again. Gabriel’s watching their human bodies fashioned from clay, Castiel is allowing himself to be changed. Gabriel breathes into his mouth, and Castiel swallows the air in greedy gulps, as though he could breathe it in and re-ignite the flame of his life in Gabriel’s image. Instead, he coughs, seizing up with the tightness in his belly, and grabs Gabriel’s hips to shove him forward.

“Gabriel," he whispers. “Brother. Give me. I need more."

“You want more," Gabriel corrects. His brow is furrowed.

“No. I need—"

But Gabriel stops moving, his hips painfully still, his body poised and pointed like a wolf on the hunt, and he pins Castiel with a stare. “Know the difference, Castiel," he says, and his voice is so cold it doesn’t sound like him.

Castiel’s eyes squeeze shut. “I _want,"_ he whispers, and the words almost don’t make it out.

“So do I," Gabriel says, and starts anew.

In the end, they lie dirty, debauched and blissful in the muck of the delta, watching the water flow by. “It hasn’t changed," Castiel muses. “Not one bit. Though everything around it has."

“It’s the core of all life," Gabriel says. “How much has the core of any of us changed? I mean, look at us. I’m still a big softie inside, and you’re still desperately trying to do the right thing."

He rolls over and presses a soft kiss to Castiel’s lips, a kiss that lingers, drifts lazily across his mouth, dipping like a cloud and then lifting again. “I gotta believe in that. Don’t you?"

Castiel thinks he feels the fringe of an ulterior motive in that question. But the kiss has clouded his own eyes, and now they’re drooping into lazy stillness. “Perhaps," he breathes, his hands relaxing over Gabriel’s, and focuses on ignoring the nagging sensation that he is happier here in the dirt, soiled and vulnerable, than he was at the height of divine power. It’s not relevant. It can’t be trusted.


	3. Tale as Old as Time (Fourteen Kisses), Part 3 of 3 (11-14)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With his new divine power, Castiel brings back Gabriel and gets more than he bargained for.

  


**xi. Neither one of you sees your natural boundaries** (angry/vicious)

After the delta they move up to the capital of the old empires, the first tribes, the place where Noah built the ark so long ago. Castiel’s face falls as he walks along the grooves and crevices of a notch in mountains where a great ship was once moored. “There were giants on the earth in those days,” he repeats softly to himself.

Gabriel watches him with some distress. He knows what he’s showing Castiel, he knows the feelings it will instill in him. These were the times when angels abused the trust and worship of the humans they were bound to guard. Lucifer was not the only angel to hate them; he was just the only one to do it openly, and after his fall all the others fell into a pattern of quiet disgust and callous abuse. They appeared unto the humans, they showed off miracles and saved lives. And then they impregnated the woman, forced them to bear monster children, drove their lives and their happiness into the ground as their brethren lived too long and laid waste to all semblance of human connection and comfort. The Nephilim were inbred, in-between, infectious viruses of bastard children, and they were the ones who had to be wiped out.

It remains the most sordid period of human history, even now, in the era of the atomic bomb and the opened Devil’s Gate. And it was the doing of the angels.

“I remember the day the water came,” Castiel says. “I remember raising my voice to my Father and begging for mercy. But I was young, small, too insignificant to be heard. Even then I knew God wasn’t listening to us. And yet we went on telling them that God hears all prayer. How could He? There are only so many voices one can hear.”

Gabriel leans on the bare scrape of a skinny tree, his body bending forward and backward, arching and rounding by turns. “Do _you_ hear them all?” he says.

Castiel’s eyes flash. “Of course. I told you. I’m better than He ever was. I hear every single prayer from every creature on this planet that utters one.”

“Mm-hm. And do you answer them all?”

A shot of guilt marks Castiel’s face, and he scowls to hide it. “How can I? And why should I? So many of them are prideful, foolish things. People pray not to be discovered in their crimes. They pray for material things, or to ease suffering that’s entirely bearable. I would be remiss to answer them all.”

“But,” Gabriel points out, “there are people who still pray for their kids not to die. And kids still die. Or have you put a stop to that practice? Zero percent infant mortality under new management?”

“You’re goading me.” Castiel turns his back. “I don’t need to listen to this.”

“I thought you listened to everyone,” Gabriel teases. He spins around the tree, palm scraping against the bark, and approaches Castiel’s back. “Oh great God in heaven, or Syria, wherever — I pray that you make all traffic lights green, remove the burnt potato chips from the bags, and while you’re at it we could really do without milk that goes sour. Or is that too small? Dear God with Thy skinny little necktie that Thou canst keep straight, I pray for an end to hangovers, food poisoning, and what the hell, I’ll throw in cancer and AIDS too. That can’t be too petty for a great God such as yourself to deal with, can it?”

“Gabriel.” Castiel expels his name as a breathy warning. “Do not test me.”

“Why not? Looks like you’ve made up your mind as to your priorities. You’re going to bless the human race with the kind of God they’ve always wanted? Get cracking, Casti- _El_.” A jeering emphasis on the last syllable, the one that means God. “Our Brother who art in Megalomania, I pray for all negative emotion to vanish and for us all to live in the Elysian fields singing The Sound of Music forever. And if I can’t have that, can I at least have my brother back?”

Castiel stretches out a hand, grabs Gabriel, and pulls him forward and around in a circle, the other loop of the Figure 8 he started by circling that tree. When he comes to the crest of it, Castiel sinks his teeth into Gabriel’s lower lip, sucks on it hard, drawing blood and making Gabriel cry out in sudden pain. His eyes bug wide and then squeeze shut, and he fights Castiel with pummeling fists. But they’re impotent as if he were a human, Castiel’s power and anger amped up to the point where he will brook no resistance.

Castiel breaks off suddenly, pushes Gabriel backward, and smears the back of his hand over his lips. A smear of blood trails red over his knuckle. His eyes are dark, and a storm rides its way through his expression.

“Is this why you brought me here? So you could remind me of the consequences of divine intervention?” he says.

“Did it work?” Gabriel sucks on his own injured lip, too slow and winded to heal it instantly.

For a long time Castiel says nothing. He stares Gabriel down, barely blinking, his fists shaking slightly by his sides but no other motion visible. Then, at last, he takes a long breath and lets it out in a shuddering sigh.

“You are right,” he says. “But you are also very wrong. I will show you, Gabriel. I will show you that I can answer prayers, that I can move heaven and earth to make this a better world.”

His voice has lost all its emotion. Gabriel’s heart stings with each thudding beat.

“All right,” Gabriel says weakly, “off to the Holy Land, then.”

 **xii. Can it be I'm not meant to play this part?** (jealous/possessive)

Jerusalem hurts.

The pain starts before they’re even there, as they’re winging over the Jordan River with their sights set on Bethlehem. Castiel crumples, clutching his head, and Gabriel holds him fast, reminds him that he can stand it, that once long ago they traversed this same territory without the benefit of souls to hold them strong, and Castiel did his job then, as he’ll do it now. Castiel is still angry, and he still doesn’t want to cling to Gabriel. But it’s the only way he can make it to the ground without falling from the sky like a stone.

It’s the prayers that hurt, raining into his head like a summer thunderstorm, constant beating of Pleases and Gods and Whys. Everyone in every country prays, but here they pray even more often and in greater numbers. It’s why they come. They make pilgrimages, as though Jerusalem will get them closer to the same God they declare is everywhere at once, and they pray out loud to the same God they swear can see straight into their hearts. This is how humans are. They seek a focus, a pattern, an overt expression for who and what they are and for the doubts and questions that plague them. They are never content to just be.

Castiel wonders, idly, in a moment between the pangs — how are they different? Is he more or less like the humans now that he is trying so very, very hard to prove he can accomplish what his father could not?

But he looks over at Gabriel, and Gabriel’s gazing at him with that lazy, knowing grin of his, like he’s completely aware of what’s “cooking in Castiel’s melon,” as he might put it. And the grin infuriates Castiel enough that he shuts down all doubts.

They travel over bridges and ancient cobblestones and reinforced concrete, past buildings of steel and old bleached brick, and Castiel grabs the railing of a nearby staircase and doubles over.

They’re within a half-mile of the Wailing Wall now.

Gabriel says nothing, for once in his life; he just slings Castiel’s arm over his shoulder and helps him limp closer and closer. Castiel’s mind and heart and body are full of pleas and prayers now — heart attacks and lost jobs and destruction of enemies, simple children’s birthday wishes and the entrenched, complex despair of the old and friendless — and the air seems to grow thick with all the prayers, turn to liquid and then to solid rock in his lungs. He can’t breathe. The souls still within him are beginning to spark, to rush with the influx of despair and anger, the entropy familiar and enticing. It was all they’d known before coming to reside within him, and to feel it this strongly churns them up, fire in his chest, sparks in his eyes, electricity between his fingertips.

“I am here,” he begins to whisper into Gabriel’s ear. “I can answer their prayers. All of them.”

“Don’t, Castiel, “ Gabriel says, and his voice is all concern, even a little fear. “You will destroy yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” Castiel insists. “I am all-powerful. I am God.”

“So what are you going to do?” Gabriel says, holding him by the shoulder. “Grab all those souls back from outer space and just start making people’s lives perfect again?”

“This world needs miracles!” Tears have sprung to Castiel’s eyes. “When was the last time the hand of God was shown as it was in days of old? These people know nothing of the divine that walks among them. Do they not deserve it? Have they not been in enough despair since we— since I allowed Lucifer to go free? The tsunamis, the earthquakes, all of the aftermath of the apocalypse? It rained corpses in those days, and I was the cause of it. I will make things better even if it does destroy me!”

Gabriel slaps him across the face. “That’s what you’ve learned?” He’s forgotten there are people who can see him, there are crowds of tourists who are bearing witness to this. “After everything we’ve done, after the house and the dates and the fireworks and the world tour, you’re still going on like you’ve got to fix everything? Even Dad didn’t fix everything!”

“That’s the problem!”

“Or maybe it’s not! Maybe that’s the point! You were going on and on about free will, and now you just want to take away all the conflict, give everyone their happy-ever-after. What are you giving them free choice for, bro? So they can choose between chocolate and vanilla ice cream?”

“I will reward those who make the right choices.”

“Then it’s not a free choice, now, is it?” Gabriel’s as angry as Castiel’s ever seen him, and there may just be tears in his eyes too. But Castiel brushes the observation aside, tries to stay on top of what Gabriel’s saying, even though the shouts and the wailing and the praying are still roiling him inside. “If you’re sitting around giving out lollipops, then nobody’s gonna learn that sometimes in life you gotta do the right thing and let someone else win for a change. Nobody’s gonna learn any perspective. You’re going to end up with a universe of spoiled seven-year-olds.”

“Like you?” The icy disdain in his voice is foreign even to Castiel. He doesn’t remember the last time he spoke to Gabriel like this.

“Exactly like me! I screwed around and ran away and hid in my corner eating candy and whining about how alone I was, and the minute I stood up for what was right, I got mowed down. Not fair, right? But if I hadn’t died, those guys would have never taken my last message seriously, and our dear brothers would have torn up this world. Someone always gets screwed, or nothing would work. And how good can you be if you never do something good not because it gets you somewhere but because it’s just plain good?”

“Gabriel—” The air is starting to weigh Castiel down. His souls are whirling with one desire; his mind with another. And Gabriel is buffeting against him with an all-out attack, and Castiel can’t stop him.

“It comes down to this, Castiel.” Gabriel lets go of him stands firm, his hands on his hips. “Do you want to be a better God? Or do you want humans to be better people? Because you can’t have both!”

Castiel groans and crumples to the ground.

He’s fading in and out through most of what happens next, through the foreign sirens and the shouting of people, the buzz of pain too intense to even feel properly. He does catch Gabriel letting paramedics do their thing, as though it were his human body failing and not his divine consciousness; he hears people ask in Hebrew and Arabic if everything is all right; he feels the pump of oxygen into a mask that’s still so laced with prayers that it hurts to breathe. But some of those prayers are for him, now, and that helps just a little.

And when they’re in the ambulance, when everyone is looking away, Gabriel reaches down and removes the mask long enough to seal his lips down where it had been, breathing his own fierce possession into Castiel’s mouth. “I won’t let anyone take you away,” he whispers, and Castiel can feel the force of his intention, drowning out a million other voices for just a moment. “I found you, and I’m not letting you go, not for souls and not for heaven and not for earth, and sure as hell not for God. You are not walking away from me again, Castiel.”

That’s all he knows before everything fades to darkness.

 **xiii. Fate is kind, she brings to those who love** (teasing)

A god in a hospital bed. It’s probably the funniest thing Gabriel has ever seen, and he should be laughing his ass off. Should be, but he isn’t, and he doesn’t think he can, because for the first time since he swore he’d never do anything but laugh again, he’s forgotten how.

He sits in the quiet hospital room, clutching Castiel’s hand.

“What the hell kind of god are you?” he half-teases. “Gods don’t get laid up. Pathetic.”

But his voice is weak, and is Gabriel ever glad he doesn’t have an audience, because nothing about this is funny. Nothing.

“I’m really pissed at you, Castiel,” he says. “Really pissed.”

“You know what the doctors told me? They said you had slipped into a coma. That there was nothing wrong with your body, you just weren’t responding. And they have no idea if you’re gonna wake up tomorrow or in a year or never at all. According to these quacks, you’re a vegetable. A broccoli god. Angel of cabbage. Congratulations.”

He lets Castiel’s hand drop away, gets up, and moves to the window. Night is slipping over the Holy City. He can hear the prayers, too, but not as loudly — they’re like a low whisper, a background hum of faith, and he’s learned over the centuries to forget it’s even there. Now, he’s kind of glad to hear it. It’s nice to know people still believe in God, even when everything they see in their lives tells them there’s no reason to. It makes him feel a little bit less like a figment of his own imagination.

“You got me, you know,” he says, shrugging, turning to glance at the bed before returning his eyes to the skyline. “I wasn’t gonna care. Honestly, I thought the trick was that you were gonna realize you were too attached to the Winchesters to leave them go. Maybe even try and smooch Dean-o for a laugh. But you were a persistent son of a bitch, and now here I am, freaking gone on you, and you—”

He stops, chokes back the thing that’s unpleasantly like a sob in the back of his throat.

“And the worst part is? I can’t even blame the souls. You’ve held them down. This is you, and your issues talking, and no matter how I think of it, I can only see you to blame. You did this, you brought this on yourself, and now I gotta be here to deal with the pieces. What kind of better God do you think you are, doing that to me, huh? How’s that a newer, fairer world?”

He lifts the back of his hand to his eyes, wipes them violently, ignores the wetness he feels there. “I brought you here to remind you that you can’t fix the world,” he says. “Didn’t expect you to go in guns blazing and try.”

“Isn’t changing my world enough, Castiel? Because you did that. You got me. You _changed_ me. That’s what’s not fair. You shouldn’t change me, and not let me change you back.”

“Don’t you get it? The world is what it is. Because of God, in spite of him, who knows? You don’t need to be responsible for it, you don’t need to be a miracle worker to be worthy of love. You are loved. If you were a human you’d still be loved. Those jackasses Sam and Dean love you, but they’re idiots, they don’t know how to say it. I’m an idiot too, but I’m a bit smarter than your average bear. So I’ll say it.”

He walks over to Castiel’s bedside and hovers over him. “I love you, Castiel,” he says, barely above a whisper, “and what’s more, I need you. So for God’s sake, let go of this stupid, stupid responsibility that’s dragging you under and come back to me. I don’t want to have to live without you.”

Castiel’s eyelashes flutter, but that’s the only movement besides the ruffling of curtains over the radiator.

Gabriel sighs and leans down to cover soft pink lips with his own. Maybe it’s the last kiss he’ll ever take. Maybe Castiel will never emerge from the prison of his mind that he’s forged, the one he’s locked away in. Maybe this kiss is the very last hope of a desperate angel who, for the first time since he ran from Heaven, had learned how to feel like he had a home. Maybe it’s just a goodbye.

Or maybe Castiel’s tongue is in his mouth.

Gabriel stumbles back, his fingers covering his lips. His eyes are fixed on Castiel’s— Castiel’s bright, open eyes. And his smile. That teasing smile.

Castiel licks his lips slowly and sits up. “I think that counts as true love’s kiss,” he says. “It’s too bad you weren’t the one being tested.”

He frowns, deadpan, at Gabriel, even as the tears start to fall.

“You had me freaking worried,” Gabriel says. “Do you know what a pain in the ass it is when God is laid up? Who the hell am I supposed to ask for help, huh?”

“Please don’t call me that.”

Gabriel stops short. “Come again?”

Castiel’s smile looks like sunrise. It’s everything Gabriel could ever have wanted from a smile. “It’s time,” he says.

 **xiv. Till we find our place on the path unwinding** (loving)

Back in the forest, in someplace starting with M in North America, Gabriel is waiting with a bottle of beer in his hand. Castiel steps outside, looks up at the skies, and nods. They wanted to do this at the place they have learned to call home, a place that represents not the past but present and future both.

Gabriel needs the beer, not because alcohol has a real effect on him but just because it represents calm, it represents a human way to deal with tough situations, and he likes to play human. It gives him a touchable, viewable point of reference for the anomaly that is his existence. He’s neither angel nor god nor monster, but if he can at least look human, that’s good enough for him.

“You ready?” he asks, and there’s a dark cloud of doubt sitting in his eyes, the eternal party pooper just waiting for the rain to come.

Castiel nods. “It has to happen. I was prideful.”

“You did the best you could.” A strange thing, to be comforting him, when Gabriel has made his life hell to get him to this point.

The souls start flying upward then, millions upon millions of scarlet and cerulean bursts against the backdrop of the night sky. There are millions of them, but they’re not as big as the universe, not as full of energy as the vacuum of space is empty of it. Perhaps some will crash against a distant planet and create life. Perhaps some will be sucked into a black hole, or burn forever on the surface of a star. Castiel is first splitting them into fragments, and they will not feel; they will disperse and become more of the mystical energy that powers the cosmos. Transformed, they will ride on forever, and transformed too, Castiel will live on without them.

When gold and copper light into a haze around the moon, Castiel takes Gabriel into his arms. They kiss, mouths crushed together, fingers gripping at each other’s faces, twining around each other in this small Eden of their own making. Gabriel’s eyes are shut tight, Castiel knows, and his are half-lidded, not wanting to close all the way and miss the bright colors reflect soft shades on Gabriel’s skin.

They part and Gabriel laughs, his face reddening even beneath a shower of green-blue sparks. “Congratulations,” he says, “you win.”

“What?”

“That.” Gabriel grins brilliantly. “That was the kiss of true love. Or as close to it as I’ve ever seen. So, you win the game. And you’re free to ditch me now.”

Castiel looks at him, trying to control the bright joy in his heart — so clear, so unclouded by the weight of the universe, as the souls flee him and he’s left alone within himself. There’s an emptiness, to be sure, but he’s not lonely or hungry to own a replacement. It just makes him want to reach out and hold Gabriel closer, instead.

“Are you sure?” he says. “Because I think it may have been lacking.”

Gabriel blinks.

“I think we might have to keep trying,” Castiel elaborates, and that’s when the stormclouds clear from Gabriel’s eyes.

“Of course,” he says. “You’re right. There was definitely something missing. We ought to give it another shot.”

Castiel pulls his face close with gentle fingers. It’s hard to deny that their next kiss is as close to a perfect Kiss of True Love as they’re likely to get. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe there are still some kinks to iron out. Neither Castiel nor Gabriel much cares, so long as it never ends.

 **THE END**


End file.
